like this?’ It was even a bit too much at times.
But I was always thinking about games and
watching games. What can you do better?
“So I said to myself, why not become
a coach? It’s a passion, it’s what I like to do.
I go onto the field and you have to tell me to
stop. Sometimes the players are like, ‘Coach,
we’ve been on the field for a long time’ and
I say, ‘Oh yes, sorry...’ You feel the pressure,
because you’re a manager. Were you feeling
pressure when you were about to play, too?
Well, yes, but it’s like breathing. I don’t think
about breathing.”
Henry coped with pressure as a player to
become an all-time great. Not everything
was perfect – Ireland supporters are unlikely
to forgive or forget his Hand of God moment
in qualification for the 2010 World Cup – but
few have enjoyed a career so resoundingly
successful. It brought him the 1998 World
Cup, Euro 2000 and the 2008-09 Champions
League, as well as league titles with Monaco,
Barcelona and his beloved Arsenal. Recently,
FFT crowned him the best player in Premier
League history.
“Thank you for that,” says Henry, humble
enough to accept every single compliment,
no matter how many he’s already received
during his life. “I wouldn’t change anything
about my career. I’m happy with what I did,
and sometimes that’s not so much about
winning. Winning matters, but it’s what you
transmit to people.
“That’s why my relationship with Arsenal
fans is special, because we cried together,
we experienced joy together. They felt what
I felt – we were as one. When people see your
heart, they’ll like you. Sometimes it could be,
‘Whoa, he doesn’t look too happy today, he’s
having a go at someone or he’s about to lose
it’. But people can relate to that – it shows
that you’re human.
“Without your team you are nothing, as you
talk about individuals when the team wins
titles. But I’ve learned to appreciate individual
recognition – you realise that you must have
done something OK with your team and left
a print. Not only with trophies, but the way
you played, the way you battled, the desire
to always show up.”
Henry didn’t just drive himself on, he drove
his team-mates to ever greater heights, too.
When Netflix screened their 10-part series
about basketball legend Michael Jordan last
year, perhaps the finest insight yet into the
relentless mentality of an elite sportsperson,
former Arsenal striker Carlos Vela told the US
media that Jordan’s approach very much
reminded him of Henry.
“Thierry tried every day to be the best and
pushed the young guys to work more, to bring
everything to every training,” revealed the
Mexican, now at LAFC.
Henry was engrossed by the documentary,
too – even if he shrugs off the comparisons
between Jordan and himself. “It’s not me –
that’s what a champion is, period,” he says.
“If you want to win, you have to go through
all of that. For me, that’s just normal – being
demanding with yourself, being demandingwith others. You have Michael Jordan, the
best player in history, coming in early every
day and working hard, and he’s more gifted
than you. So as a team-mate, you’re going
to come and not at least be at his level of
work ethic? Otherwise, where are we going?
“Then, when the war is over, the soldier
can cry. At the end of everything that Michael
Jordan won, the players all wrote about what
the team meant to them, then put pieces of
paper on the fire. That was the very first time
they saw him opening his heart – I thought,
‘Yes, because the war was finally over. He’s
going to show you everything now, but not
when he’s battling’.”n EW YORK TO n EWPORT
To the outside world, Henry’s playing career
seemed like plain sailing. He’s quick to remind
FFT, however, that certainly wasn’t the case
when we ask what it’s like to start again as
a manager – slowly working his way up the
mountain, having previously stood on the
summit as a player.
“Nothing new,” he replies. “People always
see the finished article, but don’t remember
my struggle. In 1998, nobody thought I was
going to be picked in France’s final World Cup
squad. Then after I won the World Cup, I was
the only player from that squad who didn’t
have a pass from the manager – even if they
weren’t playing well at their club, they would
go to the national team.
“For a couple of years, I went to play for the
under-21s. I didn’t fake any injuries, I didn’t
say, ‘No, this is not my level’. I went to play. ImagesPAFourFourTwo.com The Managers 145THIERRY
HEn RY